Apple-v-Samsung $1bn iPhone fine: 'Jury foreman was biased'

Apple's billion dollar patent court victory should be dismissed, Samsung say, because the jury foreman in the case was biased. Samsung's call for a retrial in the fight between the two tech giants will be heard on 6th December by judge Lucy Koh in the same San Jose court where the original verdict was handed down.

New information about the Jury Foreman Velvin Hogan taints the jury verdict, Samsung says. Hogan did not reveal to the court that he was bankrupted following a lawsuit against a company in which Samsung is now a shareholder. Hogan was sued by his former employer Seagate Technologies in 1993 and filed for bankruptcy. As of 2011 Samsung have owned a chunk of Seagate shares, in exchange for selling the storage company their HDD business.

Samsung also state that the lawyer who represented Seagate against Hogan is married to another lawyer who works for Urquhart & Sullivan the company that represented Samsung in the Apple case, claiming this as another undisclosed source of potential bias.

Sammie have asked Apple to disclose when these two facts became known to Apple.

Apple has rejected all the charges in a counter-motion, describing Samsung's argument as a "convoluted theory", and throwing scorn on the idea that Hogan would try to "exact revenge" on a Seagate shareholder and the spouse of a lawyer who had acted against him 19 years ago.

Samsung’s theory fails on the merits because the decades-old Seagate dispute has nothing to do with this case and would not have supported challenge for cause, and Samsung has not shown that Mr. Hogan’s responses were “dishonest” and “material,” as Supreme Court precedent requires.

Apple have added that it was up to Samsung's lawyers to quiz and approve jury members before the trial.

Koh said yesterday that she would hear the arguments on the 6th December. ®